But Thompson has once again proved herself to be a talented wordsmith, imbuing Effie with generosity of spirit and intelligence.įanning is a worthy muse for Thompson. The film spends an excessive amount of time on Ruskin’s psychological abuse of his wife, which makes Effie’s eventual redemption feel rushed and out of the blue. Meanwhile, Effie, who has fallen for another man ( Tom Sturridge), longs for a way to exit her nightmare. In any case, Ruskin refuses to sleep with Effie and proceeds to torture her with an unending supply of disdain, indifference and cruelty. Historians have since debated Ruskin’s motives: He was either gay or repulsed by Effie’s pubic hair or menstrual blood. Expecting to consummate the marriage, Effie undresses before Ruskin, who promptly flees the room in terror. Nine years later, the couple marry, but the marriage is doomed from their first night as man and wife. From the limited research I did on the couple, Thompson’s screenplay is pretty faithful to the historical record, which is what makes this movie especially creepy.Īn eccentric who silently suffers under the thumb of his helicopter mother ( Julie Walters) and ambitious father ( David Suchet), Ruskin boasts an unhealthy fascination with prepubescent girls - he first started to woo Effie when she was 12 years old. “Effie Gray” is based on a true story of the troubled marriage between the title character ( Dakota Fanning) and art critic and author John Ruskin ( Greg Wise, who also appeared in “Sense and Sensibility” and is married to Thompson in real life). But whereas Thompson’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic poked fun at upper-class obsession with wealth and social mobility in the early 1800s, “Effie Gray” is a dark deconstruction of marriage and sex (or lack of) during the later Victorian era.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |